AHMEDABAD, Oct 12: Senior Congress leader and former Leader of Opposition Shaktisinh Gohil has alleged that, senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley’s letter to the Prime Minister about the misuse of CBI in fake encounters probe in Gujarat, was a move to build pressure on the CBI to not act even if material compelling action against Chief Minister Narendra Modi comes up in the investigations.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, Mr Gohil has said Mr Jaitley’s contention that the CBI was a tool in the hands of the Central Government and was being used to malign Modi and his Government in Gujarat. ‘But Mr Jaitely, forgets that it is not the Central Government which ordered the CBI investigation in these cases. In fact, it is the Supreme Court and Gujarat High Court which had ordered CBI investigation in these cases. Interestingly, the investigation of Ishrat Jahan case was transferred to the CBI by the order of the Gujarat High Court at the request of the Advocate General, Gujarat, and the accused police officers,’ the letter states.
He said the most damaging testimonies and indictments of the Gujarat Government’s conduct in this case have come from its own officials.
‘Except the case of Sadiq Jamal cited by him, all the cases (Sohrabudddin encounter case, Tulsiram Prajapati encounter case and Ishrat Jahan encounter case) were initially investigated by different set of officers of Gujarat State Police, and the investigation of all these cases, including Sadiq Jamal case, discloses that all the people killed in the purported police encounters were in the prior police custody of the state police officers,’ it adds.
Accusing Jaitley of being very economic with the truth, Gohil alleged that he has made completely misconceived, misleading, false and absurd allegations in his letter with the sole intention of subverting the process of law.
Accusing the CBI of treading carefully with respect to Modi, Gohil said he may be seen by the career conscious leadership of the CBI to be a rising star in Indian politics.
He said if former minister of state for home Amit Shah can be chargesheeted on basis of certain evidences against him in Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter cases, then why doesn’t the CBI consider them as evidence against Modi as well, as he was his boss, the letter questions.
“In addition, those recently charge sheeted, including Gulab Chand Kataria (Former MoS Home, Rajasthan), have been granted anticipatory bail by the Mumbai Court in such a serious case of conspiracy to murder. This reflects very poorly on the CBI’s investigation,” it added.
Referring to former Gujarat home minister Haren Pandya’s assassination in March 2003, he said Gujarat High Court has acquitted all the accused persons and held that the CBI investigation left much to be desired, and has gone further to hold that the real culprits have not been brought to book. But instead of launching a fresh probe, the CBI has filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the High Court judgement.
“It is well known that Haren Pandya was a detractor of Narendra Modi in those turbulent times after the riots of 2002. The widow of Mr Pandya has been pleading for further investigation, which in any case is called for because there are absconding accused persons yet to be arrested. I believe that this appeal needs legal review on an objective and dispassionate appreciation of the errors in the previous CBI investigation that have been pointed out by the High Court,” he said.
(UNI)
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